Passive Euthanasia Euthanasia is a very polemic topic in bioethics and it is still illegal in most of the countries. There are a few types of euthanasia, such as active and passive. The passive euthanasia is the act of letting a terminal patient die in a natural way. It means that the doctor will not interfere by giving the patient any kind drug. The patients request the doctor to stop the treatment that is keeping them alive. The author of our text book gives us a few arguments in pro to passive euthanasia. First, the individual rights over bodies and lives, it means that all human being have the freedom to do whatever they want with their lives. Individuals have the right to do whatever they think if better for them. They can get tattoos; they can pierce parts of their body that even God would not believe; they can jump out of a roof when they are depressed, so why not ask for a doctor pull the cord? The second argument is shortening the period of suffering, is this case a terminal patient with no quality of life should not suffer any longer. The doctors and the family should let the patient go if they know that is no chance of recovery. They have to understand that prolonging this patient’s life will just bring them more pain and suffer. The health care professionals and the families should make decisions based on the patient’s best interest.
Last but not least the patients’ right to die with dignity, it means that human being have the right of dying distinction. The doctors have to respect the patient’s decision of not to deteriorate on a bed waiting for death to take his life away. A terminal patient wishes not quality of life but quality of death. So, why not give it to him? I believe that they deserve to die with dignity and piece, since they will not be able to have this in life.
The author also gives us arguments against passive euthanasia. First he mentions the abandonment of the patient what means the health care professionals will let people die refusing to the patient appropriate medical care. The doctors will not put effort to cure people, since the patient was diagnosed with an incurable illness. Passive euthanasia can induce doctors to a mistake when they decide that nothing can be done for the patient.
The second argument is the possibility of researchers finds a cure for the terminal patient’s illness. Health care providers will refute the patient the opportunity get better, since some kind of miracle cure can happen at any moment. What the author means by miracle cure is the possibility of discovery of a new drug or surgical procedure to cure the terminal patient.
Third the author states the impossibility of opting for death, since the medicine stands to life not death. He argues that health care professionals should always opt to save peoples lives and not lose them. Medicine was created to help people, it means save their lives, if the doctors start using this to help people die, medicine will lose its purpose. Thus, doctors should not think twice between life and death.
Finally the interference with God’s plan; Humans have no right over their lives just God can give and take our lives away. It is like we are born with an expiration date, however God is the only one that knows when is the time for us to leave the earth. Suicide as we know is against God’s law, consequently it is a sin.
I’ve been weighed all the arguments presented by the author and I came with the conclusion that I agree with passive euthanasia in that, I believe that humans have the right to die with dignity. Keep treating terminal patients against their will it’s not the solution for their suffering, however putting those out of their misery will be relieve not just for them but also their loved ones. I have a cousin that is doctor in Brazil, once she told me about one of her patients that had pancreas cancer without treatment because of the advanced stage of the tumor. She said that every time she walked into the cancer ward she could hear this patient moaning. The doctors would treat him with morphine, but at some point it was not working anymore. The patient’s family tried to convince the doctors to do the active euthanasia, but it is illegal in Brazil. Thus, after a few weeks he had an agonizing death.
I mentioned the case of the terminal cancer patient, just to defend my opinion about the passive euthanasia. I do not believe that we came to this world to suffer, so why should we force someone to go through a painful inevitable death. I am convinced that not just the doctors but also the family have the obligation to give the patient the chance to choose the best way to deal with death. I understand that is hard to let someone that we love die, but I also believe that keep them alive with not quality of life is selfishness.
I would like to refute a few arguments presented by the author against the passive euthanasia. First I want to talk about abandoning patients; I do not believe that any honesty health care professional will deny proper treatment to a patient. These professionals were prepared to save lives not to kill people. Passive euthanasia would come to mind just when doctors tried everything they could to save that person’s life and they were not able to do it.
The second argument is the possibility of finding cures; I am not really aware of cancer researches for example, but I believe that finding cure for cancer can take decades. When we talk about letting people die, we are talking about present, I mean about people that are dying right now. I understand that once passive euthanasia legalizes we have to think about the future patients, yet miracle cures still a very remote possibility to happen in the right time for every single terminal cancer patient. Thus, I think the ones that are slowly deteriorating in hospital’s bed must have the right to decide if they want to suffer waiting for a cure or if they want to die with dignity.
The third argument is about the impossibility for choosing death; Doctors have always to choose life instead death. I agree with this statement, but what about people that have no chance of survive? These people are not choosing between life and death, they are choosing between accepting their condition and do not be miserable, or trying to fight a war that is lost already and just get more hurt. I do believe that doctors were trained to save lives not to take it, but I also believe that they are there to do what is the best for their patients. So, when death is inevitable doctors have to help their patients and family to deal with this situation in a best way possible.
The fourth and last argument is that passive euthanasia interferes with God’s divine plan. Well the only certainty that we have in life is that will die some day, and I do believe that is a God somewhere, I just do not believe that God gave us life so them we could suffer on a bed. As we know, or at least the bible teach us is that God is love. So, what kind of love or a father wants to see someone deteriorating until die? If we cannot interfere with Gods plan by asking to die, how come medicine change God’s plan by find illness cures?
To sum, terminal patients should be treated with respect and attention to their needs and wishes. They have not just the illness to confront but also deal with the fact that they will die soon. So, doctors and families should support any decision take by these dying people, since it will be their last wish; forcing them to go through painful treatments is not the best way to keep someone that we love alive. It is better to let them go in piece and keep them alive on our heart, so when can remember how beautiful and happy our loved one was.